Making wine at home just got more fun, and easier, with Richard Bender’s experiments. Whether you’re new to winemaking or a seasoned pro, you’ll find this innovative manual accessible, thanks to its focus on small batches that require minimal equipment and use an unexpected range of readily available fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs. The ingredient list is irresistibly curious. How about banana wine or dark chocolate peach? Plum champagne or sweet potato saké? Chamomile, sweet basil, blood orange Thai dragon, kumquat cayenne, and even cannabis rhubarb wines have earned a place in Bender’s flavor collection. Go ahead, give it a try.
A rich romp through untold American history featuring fabulous characters, The Wild Vine is the tale of a little-known American grape that rocked the fine-wine world of the nineteenth century and is poised to do so again today. Author Todd Kliman sets out on an epic quest to unravel the mystery behind Norton, a grape used to make a Missouri wine that claimed a prestigious gold medal at an international exhibition in Vienna in 1873. At a time when the vineyards of France were being ravaged by phylloxera, this grape seemed to promise a bright future for a truly American brand of wine-making, earthy and wild. And then Norton all but vanished. What happened? The narrative begins more than a hundred years before California wines were thought to have put America on the map as a wine-making nation and weaves together the lives of a fascinating cast of renegades. We encounter the suicidal Dr. Daniel Norton, tinkering in his experimental garden in 1820s Richmond, Virginia. Half on purpose and half by chance, he creates a hybrid grape that can withstand the harsh New World climate and produce good, drinkable wine, thus succeeding where so many others had failed so fantastically before, from the Jamestown colonists to Thomas Jefferson himself. Thanks to an influential Long Island, New York, seed catalog, the grape moves west, where it is picked up in Missouri by German immigrants who craft the historic 1873 bottling. Prohibition sees these vineyards burned to the ground by government order, but bootleggers keep the grape alive in hidden backwoods plots. Generations later, retired Air Force pilot Dennis Horton, who grew up playing in the abandoned wine caves of the very winery that produced the 1873 Norton, brings cuttings of the grape back home to Virginia. Here, dot-com-millionaire-turned-vintner Jenni McCloud, on an improbable journey of her own, becomes Norton’s ultimate champion, deciding, against all odds, to stake her entire reputation on the outsider grape. Brilliant and provocative, The Wild Vine shares with readers a great American secret, resuscitating the Norton grape and its elusive, inky drink and forever changing the way we look at wine, America, and long-cherished notions of identity and reinvention.
Make extraordinary homemade wines from everything but grapes! In this refreshingly unique take on winemaking, Patti Vargas and Rich Gulling offer 125 recipes for unusual wines made from herbs, fruits, flowers, and honey. Learn to use ingredients from your farmers’ market, grocery store, or even your own backyard to make deliciously fermented drinks. Lemon-Thyme Metheglin, Rose Hip Melomel, and Pineapple-Orange Delight are just the beginning of an unexplored world of delightfully natural wild wines. Cheers!
Fermentation is an ancient way of preserving food as an aid to digestion, but the centralization of modern foods has made it less popular. Katz introduces a new generation to the flavors and health benefits of fermented foods. Since the first publication of the title in 2003 he has offered a fresh perspective through a continued exploration of world food traditions, and this revised edition benefits from his enthusiasm and travels.
Simple Instructions and Superb Recipes from a Winemaking Legend With local breweries and wineries popping up everywhere, learning how to make wine is on everyone’s “to do” list. Utilize the guidance of home-winemaking legend Jack Keller. In the 1990s, Jack started one of the first (if not the first) wine blogs on the internet. His expertise is shared with you in Home Winemaking. It takes a fun, practical, step-by-step approach to making your own wine. The book begins with an introduction to winemaking, including basic principles, equipment needed, and exactly what to do. After the fundamentals are covered, you’re introduced to a variety of tested, proven, delicious recipes. More than just grape wines, you’ll learn how to make wine out of everything from juices and concentrates to foraged ingredients such as berries and roots. There are even recipes that utilize dandelions and other unexpected ingredients. With 65 recipe options, you can expand your winemaking season indefinitely! Jack’s simple approach to the subject is perfect for beginners, but winemakers of every skill level will appreciate the recipes and information. So get this essential winemaking book, and get started. You’ll be sipping to your success in no time.
Naturalness is a hot topic in the wine world. But what exactly is a natural wine? For this book, best-selling wine writer Jamie Goode has teamed up with winemaker and Master of Wine Sam Harrop to explore the wide range of issues surrounding authenticity in wine. Sam Harrop initially trained as a winemaker in New Zealand.
From planting vines to savoring the finished product, Jeff Cox covers every aspect of growing flawless grapes and making extraordinary wine. Fully illustrated instructions show you how to choose and prepare a vineyard site; build trellising systems; select, plant, prune, and harvest the right grapes for your climate; press, ferment, and bottle wine; and judge wine for clarity, color, aroma, and taste. With information on making sparkling wines, ice wines, port-style wines, and more, this comprehensive guide is an essential resource for every winemaker.
Science and Technology of Fruit Wine Production includes introductory chapters on the production of wine from fruits other than grapes, including their composition, chemistry, role, quality of raw material, medicinal values, quality factors, bioreactor technology, production, optimization, standardization, preservation, and evaluation of different wines, specialty wines, and brandies. Wine and its related products have been consumed since ancient times, not only for stimulatory and healthful properties, but also as an important adjunct to the human diet by increasing satisfaction and contributing to the relaxation necessary for proper digestion and absorption of food. Most wines are produced from grapes throughout the world, however, fruits other than grapes, including apple, plum, peach, pear, berries, cherries, currants, apricot, and many others can also be profitably utilized in the production of wines. The major problems in wine production, however, arise from the difficulty in extracting the sugar from the pulp of some of the fruits, or finding that the juices obtained lack in the requisite sugar contents, have higher acidity, more anthocyanins, or have poor fermentability. The book demonstrates that the application of enzymes in juice extraction, bioreactor technology, and biological de-acidification (MLF bacteria, or de-acidifying yeast like schizosaccharomyces pombe, and others) in wine production from non-grape fruits needs serious consideration. - Focuses on producing non-grape wines, highlighting their flavor, taste, and other quality attributes, including their antioxidant properties - Provides a single-volume resource that consolidates the research findings and developed technology employed to make wines from non-grape fruits - Explores options for reducing post-harvest losses, which are especially high in developing countries - Stimulates research and development efforts in non-grape wines
Stone age wine -- The Noah hypothesis -- The archaeological and chemical hunt for the earliest wine -- Neolithic wine! -- Wine of the earliest pharaohs -- Wine of Egypt's golden age -- Wine of the world's first cities -- Wine and the great empires of the ancient Near East -- The Holy Land's bounty -- Lands of Dionysos : Greece and western Anatolia -- A beverage for King Midas and at the limits of the civilized world -- Molecular archaeology, wine, and a view to the future.
The Cucamonga Valley was once America's largest wine-producing region, crafting quality vintages decades before Napa and Sonoma. Secondo Guasti, an ambitious and enterprising Italian immigrant, established the region's first vineyard in 1901, and others soon followed. Wineries like the Vai Brothers, Padre, Galleano, Brookside and more made the valley the epicenter of a burgeoning industry. Not even Prohibition could halt production. While domestic breweries and distilleries shuttered, Cucamonga's brandy and sherry continued to be legally made for culinary and medicinal purposes. Yet by the late 1970s, harvests had dwindled and vineyards vanished. Urbanization, vine disease and property taxes effectively ended production. Today, local vintners and wine enthusiasts are reviving the region's proud heritage. Authors George M. Walker and John Peragine uncork a legacy too delectable to die.
